The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-12-16
HOW DRINK AFFECTS LABOR.
The Injury Workiny-me Infict Upon
Themselves by Intemperance.

aASC- 40 d uic, tHust WHO QTl0k at
all do, at times, drink to excess. But
they can not afford to drink even
moderately. Those whose wages are
highest. have no margins, after supply
/ ing the present needs of their families.
and making necessary provision for the
future. to waste in drink Every cent
SO wasted is robbed from their families.
The five to twenty-five cents per day
they spend in moderate drinking
makes all the difference between de-
cent poyerty-w with the necessaries ard
many of the comforts of life, and some
saving for the future - and Giving
from hand to MOUTH with scant
supply Of daily needs. and a condition
continually growing worse.
The annual drink bill of the wage
workers of this country has been esti-
mated by George Frederic Parsons to
be 5000, 100000. Others say it is $780,
O00 600. Several witnesses, some of
them employers. others laborers, testi-
! fed before the United States Senate
Committee on the Relations Between
Capital and Labor, that s'fulIy one
tenth OF all wages is spent for drink
1t is plain that the withdrawal of this.
sum from the living of people, who,
by the utmost diligence and sobriety,
can only secure enough to supply their
real wants. must produce widespread
destitution and suffering.
But the evils entailed by this waste
DO not stop with the suffering it pro-
duces. The drink habits of workmen
aggraTate all the grievances of whic h
they complain. and effectually hinder
their removal. One of these griev-
ances is too low wages. But drinking
men are clears on the labor market
Witnesses before the Senate Commit
I tee testified that drinking workmen
keep down wages to the rate they them
selves can command" They lower
wages in three ways:
l. BY uniting themselves for the
best work and pay. The man who
drinks is not so good workman as
one who does not. From one to three
quarts of beer a day, with an occasions
al spree on something stronger, dis
qualities any man for doing full work
and the best work.
2. He is not only weakened OF de-
bauched by drink, but his margins are
wasted, and he must work for what he
can get, or beg, OF starve. Having
nothing saved, he is obliged to go into
the market and sell his labor for what
ever he can get.
8. The price of work depends upon
the demand for work, and the demand
for work depends upon the demand for
the products of labor, and that, in turn,
upon the purchasing power of the peo-
pie. ......
Now, wage-workars not only spend
$500, 100000 annually for drink, but,
as was shown in articles on THE
Waste of Drink" in-the Union Sigaoay,
waste as much more in time lost
through the effects of drink. Thus
ST, 600, 600, 900 is taken from the means,
they would otherwise have to pur-
chase the necessaries of life. 1t is easy
to. see how drink habits of workmen,
which prevent the investment of
1000, 000, 900 in the products of legiti-.
mate industry, bear the labor market
by lessening the demand for those
products. But this is not all; for it
leaves out of account the higher rents
drinking-men have to pay. All the
tax rentable property pays to support
the paupers and criminals made by the
liquor traffic is taken out of the peo-
pie in inceased rent. This additional
sum paid by the wage-earner as rent
would otherwise be used to buy food,
clothing, etc., and so would help to
increase the demand for and price of
the labor necessary to produce those
commodities. The economic anomaly
of so-called oyer-production, while
thousands are destitute of the very
things said to be over produced, is
really the result of under-consumption
by people impoverished by drink
ChGs. Fl. Zimmerman, IN Union Sig
nal.
"HEALTHFULNESS" OF BEER.
Employing Brewers Unwttingly Testify
Against Their Own Calling-Why They
Want More Apprentices.
The Ale and Porter Brewers Asso-
citation held meeting recently at their
headquarters in this city to discuss the
position of their employees in their de-
mands for higher wages. A scale of
wages deemed satisfactory was adopted
for the different grades of workmen in
connection with the brewing business,
"but, says the New York Tribune, in
its report of the meeting, ..fault was
found with the refusal to adopt the
rule that only one apprentice shall
be employed to every twenty-five
men. Men die rapidly in that
kind of employment, and the employers
claim that the men die too fast to limit
the number of apprentices to one for.
twenty-five men," Though the Glitter
airy bureau of the United States
Brewers Association spends thousands
of dollars annually to flood the coun-
try with spurious documents proclaim
ing the hcalthfulness of beer, as a
Temperance () beverage, this re-
futing testimony of the employing
brewers of this city, thus unwittingly
given in their strife with their en-
ployes in the matter of employing
more apprentices because 'the men die
too fast'' to limit the number, is of a
most significant and startling char
acter. The beer business is deathly
business which ought to be everywhere
speedily abolished. e.
A very practical refutation of the
brewers false assertion concerning the
healthfulness of beer is given by those
life-insurance companies which refuse
to accept brewers and beer-sellers
among their risks. The General
Agent of the Northwestern Mutual